Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Time flies when you are having fun that is for sure...a week went by and left me in the dust. Onto the blog.

Last time we left off with the & Magazine character studies I presented you with Kantner and Grace in Character Studies II, and before that we talked about Kaukenen and Joey in Character Studies I, well now that & Magazine Issue 11 is published you can run over there and download it for FREE and check out all of the other artwork that is in there. Lots of fine fellows volunteer their efforts to that publication dedicated to the 1st Edition of the Worlds Most Popular Role-Playing Game.

This week we will view the illustration of Creech & Signe.

Copyright Del Teigeler 2015.

Creech is a fletcher, and the bodyguard of his mistress Signe, who is a practicing thief when she gets a chance. See more in the pages of & Magazine Issue 11.

I started with Signe as I wanted to capture that elusive look, she is quite devilish with her grin, and I am please with the way she turned out. I drew her with a coyish look but hinted at an underlying mischief by having her look directly at us out of the corner of her eyes. Her facial features are attractive, and I gave her a simple pulled back cut to her hair.

Her best features in my opinion are her eyes and hair. Of all of the character sketches her eyes are the best, and her hair has a natural fall to it with the shades and highlights.

I probably could have done a better job forming her jaw and chin, they look a bit brutish, but give her a "I can take care of myself" look.

Again these sketches were combined in GIMP.

For Creech I wanted him to be directly facing the viewer, giving a look of "try it punk". His face is rounded with a bald head. The description actually called for "naturally" blonde but I didnt like any of the hair I put on him. Bald to me has a natural connotation of strength, unless of course there is a comb-over involved. I am fond of the braided headband, and if you look closely you can see that the motif is an arrow denoting his "fletcher" profession. I assume Signe stole it for him.

I really need to work on textile texture. Both of their shirts could have been better. I have seen some instructional vidoes on drawing texture. Maybe I'll check them out. I deffinately think I could have done better.

Creech's beard is one of his strong points, the article doesnt mention a beard so there is a bit of artistic license there, but I favored a strong "Gerard Butler 300" type for Creech. The heavy shading at the edges and "back" of the beard are pretty well done and force the front of the beard forward in the illustration as it is lighter.

Other than than his eyes may be a bit smallish...hmm.

Anyway, there is one more of these Character Studies before I show off some other artwork I have been working on.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

It has only been two days since my last post, but I figured I would post up another in the series I did for & Magazine for the Tinkerer's article in Issue 12.

As stated previously, +Bryan Fazekas and I wanted to get portraits together to represent the NPC characters in the article.

Here is the second set, and following, my commentary about their design, layout and techniques.

Copyright Del Teigeler 2015.

Again these were drawn separately and then digitally merged.

I started with Kantner (male) and actually he was the first one that the article details, as well as the first one that I worked on. I wanted him to be big, and to reflect his taciturn nature to be straight of face, and gruff looking. He has scaring to the side of his face from burns, and that had to be in the illustration.

I think that his nose is his best feature from a design standpoint, and the fact that his eyes are stern looking gives him the overall feel that I was looking for. I added in the bib buttons with hammer and horse shoe motif to suggest his occupation of black smith. I am pleased with his portrait overall.

For Grace, I wanted to go with a sort of everyday female face. Rounded but not childlike as she is probably in her mid to late forties. I am quite pleased with the hair once again, which as I reflect on this, I feel has been in past drawings my worst trait. I can only comment that I have spent a lot of time working on hair over the past few weeks, trying like mad to figure it out. Photo reference helps a ton as does the youtube videos that are out there.

Her eyes (surprisingly) are not all that bad in my opinion, and I suppost I could have improved them a bit. To me her eye lids are good, but her irises themselves feel off to me. Maybe it is the size of the iris as compared to the overall size of the eye that is wrong. I shall endeavor to increase my skill.

She is clothed in a simple dress with a bit of detail work at the neckline.

Overall the two of them together look to be a decent couple. She is fair, though not beautiful and he is rugged and dignified in his pose. Having him behind her works well, and establishes him as the more dominant figure in the drawing, which given their relationship is all in due course.

Friday, September 11, 2015

Here are a few more pieces for & Magazine, a quarterly 1st Edition Suppliment. This particular issue covers Inns, Taverns, and Waystations. I submitted several pieces for the article titled Friend or Foe: The Tinkerer's.

All of the NPC's detailed are couples that travel together, and +Bryan Fazekas the editor/writer of the article and I decided that portraits of the couples would work pretty well.

It just so happens that I have been working on life studies and portraits as part of my ongoing personal improvement plan as an artist, so it fit right in. Each of the portraits were composed separately and then merged digitally with GIMP.

I really tried to not overwork them, in pencil and do them as quickly as possible. Turns out there were parts that gave me fits. Read on for my honest assessment of the artwork.

This first one is of Kaukenen a male cleric and his spouse Joey, a magic-user.

Copyright Del Teigeler 2015.

As it turns out I drew Joey early on, and completed Kaukenen as the last of the eight portraits. Looking firstly at Joey, the description called for a homely woman with intelligent eyes. There are several aspects to her portrait that I am fond of and several that I could have done better on.

Firstly, I am not an expert at drawing hair, however, I have been practicing and watching a ton of instructional videos, and I am quite pleased with her braiding. The dark and lights really sell the wrap around style of the braid, and the wisps of hair coming along the sides of her face, I feel really framed her, perhaps her left (right to the viewer) "wisp" could have fallen more naturally.

Now for the not so goods, first I need to work on eyes. That is the plan for my next self evaluation. I have a firm grasp on creature eyes but human eyes are another beast all-together (excuse the pun). Secondly, I am planning on working on facial composition. What I mean by that is the shape and curve of her jaw, and cheeks seems off to me, granted she is not supposed to be beautiful by any stretch, but there is something that I did not capture as well as I had hoped. There are a ton of rules to follow when building a face, and I think I need to re-look at those rules.

As for the male; he was the last portrait I completed in this series, and I feel I did the best job on him than any of them. First, the extreme right facing angle of him is unique, and gives the viewer a good profile image. He was written as ruggedly handsome and a "catch" for the ladies. The best feature is the hair, surprisingly. Perhaps I have gotten the hang of it after all of the study.

His worst feature in my opinion is once again his eyes, though I did a better job of creating a believable expression, there is something not right about his right eye (left to the viewer). I worked and worked it, but it didn't get better.

Once I digitally combined the two, I feel I could have composed them better, to fit together. He seems to be staring off through her head, and it would have been better compositionally if I would have faced her at the extreme angle that I had positioned him, but it works overall I suppose. Drawing them together could have probably solved the problem, but I wanted to draw each portrait large, so that I could work each at a larger scale for detail sake.

Well, that seems like a lot of reading, so I will leave it at that and save the other drawings for another post perhaps in a day or two.